Something In My Heart by Michel'le played on my Walkman as I got ready for work, and I couldn't stop myself from humming along.
First of all, the girl could sing, even if she did talk weird. Second of all, the song was too fitting right now.
Days later and I still couldn't believe it: Dalvin and I had kissed. Finally.
The feel of his lips against mine still lingered while I tied my hair up in a ponytail and I made a mental note to call Dalvin later. I wondered how he was taking it, us finally kissing after all this time.
"Bianca, come here!" I heard Aunt Pam yell frantically from the living room and I took off my headphones and ran out there, worried.
"Auntie, what's wrong?" I asked, noticing the horrified expression on her face.
She turned up the TV and I watched. It was news channel, and they had a camera filming right outside of....Mrs. Huang's store.
"Four bodies were discovered in the back of Mei Huang's convenience store at about 7 AM this morning by José Aguilar, the owner of the dry cleaners next door to the store. He claims that he had been smelling a foul stench since Wednesday afternoon and finally, called the police when Huang had not returned as promised on the paper taped to the front door of the store."
The camera switched to Mr. Aguilar's face, looking visibly distraught.
"I smelled something for a few days, but I wasn't sure what it was. At first I thought maybe she left something out while she was gone, but when she still hadn't shown up at 7 o'clock, I knew something was wrong. She always opens a little bit before 7."
I stared in shock, unable to speak.
Mrs. Huang was dead.
And I might've known who did it.
-------------------
When I got to the store, there was a large crowd of people outside - and four body bags being hauled off into two separate vans.
"Oh my God," I whispered to myself, my breathing shaky. I was starting to get lightheaded, and it almost felt like I was about to pass out.
"Ma'am," a police officer approached me, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, thank you," I said, and then someone from the crowd spoke.
"Hey, don't you work here?"
The police officer looked down at me.
"Uh, yeah. I do."
"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" He inquired, and I shook my head. He pulled me off to the side, away so no one else could hear us.
"What's your name?" He asked.
"Bianca Thompson, sir."
"When's the last time you saw Mei Huang?"
I'm not gonna lie, this was a nightmare come true. 4 homicides and a white police officer questioning me, an employee - and probably the last person to see Mrs. Huang alive.
"On Monday, around noon."
"Was she acting strange in any way?"
"No? She did send me home early though, after this - altercation," I said, hesitating.
"Between you and her?"
"No, not me. With someone else."
I exhaled hard. I really didn't wanna say who, because....well, I just didn't. But at the same time - I couldn't not say anything. It would haunt me for the rest of my life, if there was a possibility that Nate might've killed Mrs. Huang and her entire family in cold blood.
"It was this boy, Nate. I don't know his last name. He works - or, used to work with me. I think she fired him that day. He said she accused him of stealing from her."
The officer pulled out a pen and pad. "What does he look like?"
"He....he's got a shaved head and a little scar, like right here," I pointed to a spot on my own forehead. "He's like, maybe one shade darker than me. Maybe not even that."
"Were there any threats?"
"No, not that I remember. He almost pulled her over the counter, though."
"Last question: do you know if he has a key to the store?"
"I don't think so? I don't have one," I said, shrugging.
He wrote down everything I had told him, from the details to the description before he looked back down at me. I think he could tell I was scared, just a little bit.
"No need to be afraid, ma'am. Everything's gonna be just fine. Why don't you go on back home, and we'll get in touch with you if there's any more questions?"
"Okay....okay, yeah. I will." Right as I was about to leave, I saw a familiar face in the crowd, looking around and confused, trying to figure out what was happening.
"K-Ci?" I asked as I approached him, and his face softened up when he saw me.
"Bianca, you good?" K-Ci asked, immediately wrapping his arms around me. We didn't know each other like that, but neither of us really cared at the moment.
"I'm good....I mean. Not good, but I'll survive. What are you doin' out here, where's Dalvin?"
"I was just comin' to mess with you, actually. I was bored," he said, pulling away, "Dalvin and them are at the bank, tryin' to send some money to the kids."
I raised an eyebrow. "Kids?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot you didn't know yet. De and JoJo are fathers."
"De and JoJo? The same De and JoJo that were hopped up on counters and tables, scared of a little mouse?"
He laughed, "Yeah, that's them. Hey, do you mind if we just....got outta here? Maybe get some breakfast, or something."
"I don't know," I said, looking back at the vans carting the bodies off, "I don't think I can eat anything right now. Maybe we could just walk around for awhile and waste some time since....I don't have anything to do today."
He nodded and then we were off, just walking away and leaving the frenzied scene behind.
"So...we're sorry for bustin' in on you and Dal the other night," he said, "We saw the car outside but we just figured he already dropped you off."
"It's fine, I had to go home anyways. I got a curfew, you know," I said."
"It looked like y'all were about start gettin' it on, right then and there on the couch," he said, and I shot him a look.
"Don't look at me like that, I know what I saw. Y'all were all up on each other, I coulda swore I saw him grabbin' up on your - "
"Okay, you coulda swore wrong because we were only holding hands," I interrupted him, "Besides, on that couch? I would never. Y'all got mice, roaches and Lord knows what else. Not to mention that little shag carpet on the floor, I'm good."
"Aye, say what you want, I bet that shag used to be fly back in the 70s. It'll look nice once we get it deep cleaned, if we ever get the money."
"Ain't enough deep-cleaning in the world," I said.
"Anyways," he said, pushing my arm playfully, "From what I hear, you and the boy Dalvin are hittin' it off pretty good."
"Something like that," I said, smiling coyly. "Dalvin just stay tellin' y'all everything, don't he?"
"It's mainly me, 'cause that's my nigga and we tell each other everything. You ain't got nobody to tell all your business to?"
"Nah, not really. I mean, I can tell my little sister a lot of stuff but not everything, you know? An entire month and I still don't really got friends like that. Except Sybil, maybe."
He seemed to think for a moment before speaking again. "You know what, you and this girl I know would probably like each other."
"What's her name?"
"Nessa. We kick it from time to time, she's cool."
I wagged my eyebrows dramatically. "Like, 'kick it' kick it or just kick it?"
"Both," he laughed, "It's like friends with benefits, but with more benefits."
"Oooh, sounds just a little messy," I said, bringing my thumb and index finger together.
"It's fine, it ain't messy at all. You would think 'cause of the others, but nah. It's all good."
"The others?"
"....okay, I done said too much. Aye, hold on. I wanna get something to drink. You want anything?" He asked as we came by the front of a different convenience store.
"Nah, I'm good. I'll wait for you."
As dramatic as it sounded, I really didn't even wanna go inside another store any time soon. It was all too fresh, the crime scene tape and the body bags. The names of the victims read out loud on the television. Mrs. Huang was racist as hell, yeah - but I still felt horrible. The idea of death wasn't something I was all that familiar with, especially not the slaughter of an entire family that I knew.
And the fact that Mrs. Huang died only hours after I had last saw her didn't help much.
K-Ci came back out a couple minutes later with a soda and pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and one tucked behind his ear.
We were both quiet as we just walked. I didn't know where we were going, but I trusted him. He had lived here long enough to know where and where not to be at.
"Do you know who killed them?"
Straightforward with that question, wasn't he?
I sighed. "I might."
"Did you tell the officer that?"
"Yeah, kinda. I ain't tryin' to point fingers or nothin' like that, but....that guy, Nate. I feel like he should be the prime suspect," I said, and he got this strange look on his face.
"You think that nigga did it?" He asked.
I nodded my head. "It just makes the most sense. I mean, they got into this argument on Monday - she accused him of stealing....but I don't know. It wouldn't make sense to rob the store after being accused of stealing money."
"I didn't even know they got robbed," he said, taking a swig of his soda.
"Yeah, that's what they said on the news," I replied, and then snorted softly.
"To think, this morning I was happy as hell, listenin' to a little bit of Michel'le and getting ready for my day at work. Not havin' a damn clue about any of this."
"Shit, me too. I woke up this morning a sprightly and springy young buck, now I feel like I aged 20 years just in that amount of time I was standing outside the store this mornin'," he said, and I chuckled.
I shook my head, my thoughts still wrapped around what happened.
"You know I was so close to not sayin' anything about what I saw on Monday?"
"That's...not all that surprising. But you're brave, you know, for speaking up anyways. Not a lot of niggas would do that," he said, and he sat down as we finally came to a bench outside somebody's restaurant.
"Yeah. I just knew that if I didn't, that shit would end up haunting me," I said, sitting down next to him.
"What, you think God woulda punished you?"
"Nah, I meant like mentally. Not God. I say his name a lot but I'm not really religious like that." I side-eyed him. "No offense."
"None taken." He pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it up with the lighter in his pocket.
"You smoke?"
"Me? No, I never smoked before," I said, and he suddenly got this mischievous look on his face.
He pulled the pack out of his pocket and gave me one. I held it between two fingers, analyzing it.
"The hell you givin' me this for? I ain't about to ruin my lungs. Besides, ain't tobacco a gateway drug?"
He let out a loud laugh, "Hell naw, girl. I don't know where you heard that shit from. But you should at least try it, you might like it."
I looked at him skeptically.
"Alright."
I put it to my lips and he lit it up. I inhaled and immediately choked, coughing hard enough to the point where I was sure my lungs would come out of my mouth.
"What the hell?" I coughed.
"Chill out, you'll do that at first. Now, back to the conversation. You ain't really all that religious?"
I shook my head, still trying to recuperate, "No, not really. I just wasn't raised like that. Besides, there's so much shit out there these days I honestly don't know who to believe about what."
"It sounds like you need more of the Lord in your life."
"You think?"
"Yeah, I do. Let me tell you something...."
// all I gotta say is 🏃🏽♀️🏃🏽♀️🏃🏽♀️🏃🏽♀️. Expect another chapter tonight or tomorrow, in the mean time I just wanna let y'all know that I have so many ideas for this book y'all have no clue 😭😭